Game Night at Rick & Marnee’s: Vinci, Fairy Tale

October 21st

I thought Kristin and I were going out for dinner with Abe and Laura on Saturday, but it turned out she had agreed to go for Dim Sum. This meant that I had to, unfortunately, miss my soccer game for the week but, fortunately, could make it to the redux of R&M’s GN (due to a scheduling mixup, they ended up having events Friday and Saturday).

When I got there, it looked like attendance was a little lite, and I thought I might be getting home early. This would have suited me, as I’ve been pretty wrapped up in World of Warcraft lately. I knew my eyes really didn’t need to be glued to a computer monitor any more that day, though, so I sat down to wait and see if more people would show.

The small group of people already there were engaged in a session of Die Mauer. I hadn’t played this, so it was sort of fun to watch. It’s a bluffing/guessing game. Each person has several sections of wall, worth 1-15 points. Some can’t be built next to each other. Each turn, everyone tries to figure out which piece the master builder (rotates each turn) is has secretly chosen to build. After everyone has secretly selected a piece, they are revealed. If you chose the same piece as the master builder, you get to build it, and they don’t. If nobody chooses the same piece as the mb, then the mb gets to build. First person out ends the round, and the rest of the players finish in order of least negative points. It seems evident it’s made to be played over several rounds, with cumulative score. Rick won the first round, but finished far in the rear for the second, making him last overall. Ah, fate.

A couple more people had arrived, and we split up into two groups. One group played Guillotine, while our group played Vinci. Myself, Andrea, and Gina hadn’t played before, while Rick, Ken, and Ravindra had.

Vinci

Vinci is a tactical area scoring game. Each player gets an empire, which consists of two tokens that give that empire a number of troops for the turn, as well as, sometimes, special abilities for combat, movement, or scoring. Using the tiles you have, you come on from the edge of the board and try to set up the best scoring possibilities you can. After you feel you’ve taken that empire as far as you can, you skip a turn and get a new one. Players continue doing this until someone hits 100 points, and the game ends at the end of the round. This is simple, diceless movement and combat, on a nice little map of Europe.

It looked to me like I had a choice between taking an empire with lots of troops, or taking one with scoring opportunities. I chose the former, which was probably a mistake. It left me a little bit in the hole on vps to start with, but also meant I’d end up with the biggest early empire, making me a sort of target. I moved into an area that was good for me to take and score lots of territory. Unfortunatley, this area would prove to be a popular one, and my empire didn’t last too long. Rick jumped out into the lead, with back to back to back turns of special scoring from mines, and nobody really messing with him. I fell into last place, apparently unable to catch on to how to place my empires so that they would stick around. The game got about halfway done, and people started to pick on the leaders, who were basically Rick, Ravindra, and Andrea. In the final third of the game, I expanded into an area (Spain and Western Europe) that stuck around a while. I also got a good scoring tile, and made some points over the last three or four turns. With people really picking on the leaders, I got out into the lead and triggered the game end. Andrea was able to catch up with me on the last round, though, and we ended in a tie, followed by Ravindra, Rick, and Ken. This was a pretty fun game, with lots of decisions. With the number of people we were playing with, there was a lot of opportunity for the game state to change by the time your turn came back around. I really never felt that there was too much chaos, though. I’d definitely play again.

After this, Andrea and Gina left. Rick, Ravindra, Ken, and myself sat around and talked about Vinci and other games for a while. Then, Ravindra pulled out some quick games he’d brought along, and we decided on Fairy Tale.

Fairy Tale

This is a light fantasy card game with a drafting element. You play four rounds, and then score. At the beginning of each round, each player draws five cards, and then cards are drafted and passed in a manner very similar to a Magic: the Gathering booster draft. After the draft, there are three turns in which each player secretly selects and simultaneously reveals a card. Each card has a scoring value, and some attributes, and some cards flip other cards to make them inactive in terms of scoring. Many cards also have special, interactive scoring abilities.

Not too much to say about this. You really mostly have to watch what your opponents are doing, and pay attention to the cards you are passing in the draft, to try to minimize their scoring opportunities. I ended up getting a few big cards, and the other cards that satisfied their scoring conditions. On the last turn of the last round, I got to play a card that basically wrecked everyone else out of 3-14 points. Pretty good. I won by a decent amount.

After that, it was late and time to go home. I only got to play two games this time, but it was a really good time. It’s always nice to learn some new games.

GG, GL
JW